Sermonette for Saturday
And one of the Pharisees desired Him that He would eat with him. And He went into the Pharisee’s house and sat down to meat. Luke 7:36
Let’s pretend you are living in the time when the Lord Jesus was here on earth, and that you have an opportunity to invite Him to your house to have a meal. You first of all will be awed that you have such an opportunity. But there are so many things to consider, and so much preparation to make. You must determine which meal you will invite Him to, and what you will be serving. Then you must consider who else you will invite to this meal. But there is one huge consideration: you have an opportunity to invite the Lord Jesus, but you have no idea whether He will accept the invitation. Will He actually come to your meal? How likely is it that He will have a prior engagement and turn you down, or even ask for a raincheck? Based on today’s text, it is a pretty safe bet that He would come. The real uncertainty is what will transpire at such a meal.
The Pharisee gave the Lord Jesus an invitation to dinner, and Jesus accepted, with no apparent hesitation. It was not His first dinner invitation, either. Just a couple of chapters earlier, we read of the Lord Jesus attending a dinner in his honour at Levi’s house. But there was a great difference between those two dinners. Levi, or Matthew, had recently been called to be one of Jesus’ disciples. He used the occasion to throw a big dinner and invite all of his friends and fellow tax collectors to meet the Lord Jesus. Levi’s was a celebratory dinner, an opportunity to show His commitment to the Lord Jesus and to give others an opportunity to do the same. But Simon the Pharisee had entirely different motives. We don’t know whether he actually had an ulterior motive, but he was certainly sceptical. He was looking for information at the very least, and was possibly looking for an opportunity to catch the Nazarene in some trap. Regardless of his motives, the Lord Jesus accepted his invitation, and attended his dinner. If Simon could be won, so much the better; if not, there was no trap that could possibly catch the Lord Jesus unawares.
Consider the grace of the Lord Jesus, in accepting the invitation. This should be an encouragement to us today, as we seek to witness to others and seek to spread the Gospel message. There is not much we can do about the outright rejectors and despisers of the message, or those who simply refuse to consider the Gospel from pure apathy. But sometimes those we think are rejecting are simply considering and – like Simon the Pharisee – looking for the loopholes. Only by continuing to witness to these folks can we hope to bring them to conviction. The same goes for those who show a little interest and make at least a show of listening to the message. Only the Holy Spirit can work in their souls to reveal the Son of God.
If we could invite the Lord Jesus for a meal, who would we invite to join us? Whether they attend the dinner is not up to us. – Jim MacIntosh